


Coda: Just Passing Through

by Jadzibelle



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Very vaguely implied Audrey x Duke x Nathan, episode 5.20 Just Passing Through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:03:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5220713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/pseuds/Jadzibelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short fic dealing with the aftermath of 5.20.  Nathan sent Duke a letter; Duke answers the only way he can.</p><p>Spoilers for season 5b, particularly 5.19 Perditus and 5.20 Just Passing Through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coda: Just Passing Through

Trees flashed by, ghost white and looming in the glare of his headlights.  Pressing the accelerator down, Duke pushed the car just a little faster, gambling on this stretch of road being relatively clear of cops; if he kept pushing, he’d be back in Halifax in an hour or so, he could get a few hours sleep and then track Hailie down.

_I’m counting on you._

The words burned in the back of his mind, trembled down his arms, left his hands restless on the wheel.  For the fourth time in less than an hour, Duke dropped his hand to press it over his pocket, to feel the paper there crinkle- even folded up and tucked away, he couldn’t get away from the weight of it.

_I need your help._

Duke had already known that much, had already made the call that he _needed_ to go back- that he needed to  _understand_ , to interfere, that he _could not_  allow whatever that vision had been to come to pass.  No matter how loathe he was to go back, to get sucked back into that nightmare, if there was even a  _chance_ that Nathan could be lost, that Audrey could be-

-if there was even a chance, he had to find a way to fix it.  Or stop it from happening.  Something.  He’d already made that decision, was running home as fast as he could go.

_I’ve found a way to save Haven once and for all, but I can’t do it without you._

Duke could honestly take or leave saving the town.  He didn’t owe Haven a goddamn thing.  But if his being there could keep Nathan safe…  Could keep whatever insane plan he’d worked up from consuming him…

_I’m counting on you._

Duke pressed down on the letter again, trying to pretend his hand wasn’t shaking.  He’d find Hailie, and be back in Haven in a day.  Hopefully, Nathan hadn’t done anything insanely dangerous yet.  Hopefully, the fact that the letter was delivered  _yesterday_ meant that Duke still had time, that Nathan had picked that date for a  _reason_.  Hopefully, he’d wait until Duke was  _there_ to watch his back before he did anything too chancy.

Duke wasn’t big on  _hope_.  He let his speed creep up another notch, pushed a little further.  He needed to get  _home_.

***

Standing by the window, Nathan stared absently at the wall of fog.  It was the same as it had been, the same as it always was, and he wondered, absently, if there would be any sign when someone passed through it.  If it would shift, if it would billow, if it would light up, something, anything, to give him a signal.

He doubted it.  That, after all, would be  _helpful_ , and the fog was not there to be helpful.

Audrey stepped up behind him, her arms going around his waist, her fingertips slipping beneath his shirt.  He smiled, reached down to lace his fingers through hers, enjoyed the sparks of sensation and the warm comfort of her presence.

“You really think this is going to work?” she asked, uncertainty in her voice.  He glanced down, and she was staring out, as well, eyes distant, attention on the deceptive softness of the barrier.

“It’ll work,” Nathan replied, turning away from the window, pulling Audrey with him.  He shifted so that he could get his arms around her, so that they were standing front-to-front, and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“Nathan…”  She took a breath, pulled back enough to look up at him.  “After  _everything_ -”

“We got his letter.  He’ll get mine.  It’ll work.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Audrey said.

“Only thing  _to_ worry about,” Nathan said firmly.  “He’ll come back, Parker.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“…” And that was the question, had been the question, even when Nathan had been writing the letter in the first place.  When he’d been pinning  _everything_ on being able to reach Duke, across time and distance and a gulf between them that neither  _time_ nor  _distance_ was adequate to describe.  But there hadn’t been a lot of options, Nathan had been running out of time, and they  _needed_ someone from outside the barrier.  They needed someone who could pass  _through_ the barrier.

They needed someone Nathan could count on.

“Because I asked him to,” Nathan said, finally, because that’d been the answer when he’d been writing, was still the answer now.  “Because we need him.”

And Duke, for all his failings, for all his flaws, came through for them when they asked him to.

Nathan had to believe he’d manage, one more time.

***

Whatever reluctance Hailie might’ve had, after the whole black-eyed-hunter incident, to let Duke get close to her was trumped by the immediate necessity of him showing up just in the nick of time to keep her from getting riddled with bullet holes; Duke was willing to accept the help, be it luck or fate or something in between.  Hailie was so shaken she didn’t even bother to ask where they were going until three hours later, when they’d stopped to grab something to eat and so Duke could stretch his legs.  Impatience, after all, could not change that he’d been driving for days with very limited breaks.

She accepted his curt statement of  _Haven_ without pressing for more, clearly having decided that whatever risk he posed, it was less than what was waiting for her  _without_ his dubious protection, and they were back on the road in short order.

Her exclamation of utter disbelief when they approached the wall of fog was vaguely satisfying; it wasn’t just him, he wasn’t completely out of his mind, hadn’t just constructed some impossible, horrible delusion for himself to explain away years lost some other way- Haven was  _real_ , the Trouble that had cut it off from the world still existed, and Hailie’s proximity to him meant  _she could see it too_.  He parked the car under the trees, as close to the barrier as he dared to get, and took no chances- he carried Hailie across, into the disorienting, shifting gray, past shadows that stretched and reached and roiled.

It occurred to him, once they were inside, that if he was  _pressed_ , he could probably do the same to get his people  _out_.  They’d probably kick more, but he  _could_.

Of course, he had no idea if they’d forget everything, once they were _outside_ , so he’d save that as a last resort.

…A tempting last resort; Haven looked like a war zone, and he’d run goods through a few of those over the years.  The town was gray and flat and battered, and it took only one mis-step for him to realize the _warning_ in the bright paint sprayed across the roads; mostly, he realized with something uncomfortably like fond relief, in Nathan’s abrupt shorthand.  Which was a good thing- he knew Nathan’s codes well enough to guide Hailie around what appeared to be the worst Trouble spots, though the walk was decidedly uncomfortable.

He didn’t have words for the swelling mix of relief and terror that hit him, when they came to a stop on the street in front of Nathan’s dad’s old place, and the lights were on in the kitchen.  He steeled himself, swallowed back his uncertainty, brushed his fingers over his pocket and the letter within.  He was there by invitation.  Nathan had  _asked him_  to come home.

_I need your help.  I can’t do it without you.  I’m counting on you._

Nathan had asked him to come home.  Duke was there by invitation.  It still didn’t make it any easier to walk up to the door, to raise his hand, to knock.

To  _wait_.

The door opened, and Nathan stopped,  _stared_ , like he couldn’t quite believe Duke was there, like he wasn’t quite sure how to react.  Duke stared just as hard, let himself have a moment of weak-kneed  _gratitude_ that Nathan was  _there_ , was alive and whole and not  _lost in the Void_.

“…I got your letter,” he said, after a long moment.  The words were shaky, uncertain.  He could hear his own doubt spelled out in his voice.

“Was countin’ on it,” Nathan said, before he shoved forward, wrapped Duke in a hug just as awkward and overwhelming as the last one.

This time, though, this time Duke hugged back.


End file.
